Emerging technologies may improve our 'fragmented' knowledge of allergens
Writing in Food Research International, the team of Italian scientists note that food allergy is an important concern in the context of public health and safety - however, the current method of profiling allergens in food offers scant information, presenting fragments of information on allergenicity.
Led by Maria Antonietta Ciardiello from the Institute of Protein Biochemistry at Italy's National Research Council (CNR) the research team noted that developing a way to fully describe the pattern of individual allergens associated with each food or food ingredient "is of crucial importance both for the diagnostic process and the setting of a safe diet."
"However, we are still far from this goal," said Ciardiello and her colleagues - noting that allergen data resources like Allergome are limited in the information they contain.
They suggested that although some advances have been made during the last few years, which have led to the identification and characterisation of new allergens, "this knowledge is still fragmentary and does not allow the definition of a comprehensive pattern."
"To reach this goal, the adoption of new strategies allowing the analysis of low abundant proteome components is necessary,"
Ciardiello and her team said that such new strategies should be based on 'a dynamic combination of different methodologies' - including classical biochemistry-based methods and innovative microtechnologies and bioinformatics.
Together, the authors suggested that these technologies will help researchers and industry alike obtain the best results "and give a forward thrust to knowledge in this field."
Source: Food Research International
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2013.03.013
"Food allergen profiling: A big challenge"
Authors: Maria Antonietta Ciardiello, Maurizio Tamburrini, Marina Liso, et al
